Grandaddy sounds more distant than usual

August 05, 2003|By Joshua Klein, Special to the Tribune.

Modesto, Calif.'s Grandaddy released its sublime third album "The Sophtware Slump" back in the early days of 2000, during the final euphoric moments of the tech boom when everyone was still breathing a sigh of relief that all of the world's computers hadn't revolted and rebooted on New Year's Eve. The band's technophobia and curious songs about inanimate objects seemed very appropriate for the time, but so much has happened since then.

You'd think that Grandaddy might expand its fantastic vision of mankind lost in a metaphysical, mechanical wilderness--a sort of surreal Sylvania where computers vie with trees--to take in the strange real world around it. But on the new "Sumday," Grandaddy singer Jason Lytle's sci-fi narratives are as elliptical and impenetrable as ever.

That can be a good thing, because Lytle's enigmatic lyrics and helium falsetto help enhance Grandaddy's unique feel: The band sounds like the Beach Boys had the Beach Boys been robots raised on the icy rings of Saturn rather than sunny California. But playing at the House of Blues to a packed crowd Sunday night, Grandaddy sounded even more chilly and distant than usual, the pristine acoustics and sterile environment actually working against the group.

With a series of entertaining home movies projected behind it, the band proficiently if coolly coasted through songs such as "El Caminos in the West"--with its infectious "doot-doots"--and "Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake," whose rinky-dink drum machine beat perfectly matched the catchy, rudimentary keyboard hook. Lytle, cordoned off behind his keyboards where he switched between playing spacey synth arpeggios and strapping on a guitar, came across as laid back almost to the point of distraction.

There was no question the band, just off a European tour and readying itself for yet another trek with Super Furry Animals, was playing as well as ever, or that the way Lytle's voice meshed with bassist Kevin Garcia's was anything less than heavenly. Maybe it was the strangely sedate crowd or the antiseptic setting, but Grandaddy never quite connected. That is, not until the tricky, fuzzed out mini-epic "Lost On Yer Merry Way" shook the club out of its stupor. By then it was literally too late, not because the band had lost its audience, but because Grandaddy had run out of time. The tight curfew of the all-ages show forced the band off the stage after just an hour, right when the group was beginning to take off, resulting in a torrent of disappointed boos once it became apparent there would be no encore.

Openers Earlimart got their name from another town in California, and the group had more than just a home state in common with Grandaddy. Oftentimes Earlimart sounded more than a little like their friends and tour mates. At their best, though, they showed a promising way with abrupt feedback eruptions and enjoyably sweet and sour melodies, concluding with a chaotic cover of Wire's "Strange."